One of my favorite things about language is the quirky way cultures interpret animal noises. Dogs for example bark "Woof, Woof" here in the US, "Mong, Mong" in S. Korea, "Av, Av" in Serbia, "Ghav, Ghav" in Greece, and "Hau, Hau" in Ukraine. David Sedaris touches on this in his essay "Six to Eight Black Men":
Guns aren't really an issue in Europe, so when I'm traveling abroad, my first question usually relates to barnyard animals. "What do your roosters say?" is a good icebreaker, as every country has its own unique interpretation. In Germany, where dogs bark "vow vow" and both the frog and the duck say "quack," the rooster greets the dawn with a hearty "kik-a-ricki." Greek roosters crow "kiri-a- kee," and in France they scream "coco-rico," which sounds like one of those horrible premixed cocktails with a pirate on the label. When told that an American rooster says "cock-a-doodle-doo," my hosts look at me with disbelief and pity.
Typically, when talking about animal sounds with friends from new cultures, the topic switches from "what does such and such say where you are from?" to more exotic topics like "what does a giraffe sound like?", however I've never wondered what a stingray sounded like, until I ran across this YouTube video from Fish Thinkers Research Group which shows a mangrove whipray and cowtail stingray clicking:
